Let's Not Meet Again

Outside My Tent

To preface, every year I would go stay with my friend at her lake house for about a week or two usually over the Fourth of July weekend. This happened about three years ago while I was camping in the yard. This particular night there was more people there than usual. If I remember correctly, it was the fourth going on the fifth, so people had been there drinking all day and decided to camp out with everyone after a full day and night of partying and celebrating. The lake house was really in the middle of no where. There were lots of trees and forest around surround each house. I'd say it's probably about half a mile between each house around the lake. There were a variety of really nice rich houses and if you went further down the road, there was more dilapidated, trailer home type houses.

Anyways, the house sat more on a hill and just a little further down was a long, metal T-shaped dock that obviously led to the water. My friend and I had been sleeping in a tent closer to the water the entire vacation, so when everyone else showed up with their tents the yard got pretty crowded.

As I was sleeping all I remember was waking up in that way after you've had a nightmare. My eyes just shot open and my heart was pounding for no reason and I was suddenly wide awake. It took me a second to realize why I was so suddenly awake but then I saw a distinct shadow from outside the tent. There were porch lights that were kept on to slightly illuminate the house should someone have to go in and use the restroom. The silhouette was standing what seemed like right in front of our tent perfectly still.

I had to make sure what I was seeing was real and that I wasn't just seeing things or overreacting to just a tree or something. Other possibilities that crossed my mind was maybe one of the guys had gotten up to pee or something. But this shadow was not moving and just seemed to be facing, staring at our tent. It was a little scarier not knowing how close the shadow was because with tents sometimes its a bit distorted and you can't always tell how close someone is. I stayed there frozen for what seemed like an hour watching this shadow not wanting to make any noise.

I finally decided to nudge my friend and wake her up to ask her if she saw what I was seeing. She looked and was instantly freaked out. I was a little more at ease after I woke her up both because I knew I wasn't crazy and also because I didn't feel alone. I finally worked up the courage to feel like I could maybe go out there to investigate and asked her if she would come inside to go to the bathroom with me. Going outside would maybe try to prove to myself that I was being crazy and that there was nothing to be scared about. Of course, thought, my friend was too freaked out to go and somehow fell back asleep.

I stayed wide awake feeling the presence of someone there and watching this shadow. To make things worse, one of the people visiting the cabin had their purse stolen out of their car a few nights back. I must've fallen back asleep at some point for a few minutes-maybe a half hour at most because when I woke up again the shadow was gone but there was definitely someone on the dock.

The dock was metal so any person walking on it - or even tiptoeing- was not a secret. All I heard was heavy feet walking up and down the dock for what literally seemed like hours. This was the creepiest part to me that whoever was there had the patience to pace up and down the dock for literally hours. I stayed up to listen, doubting myself the whole time. I didn't even bother waking my friend up again because she was no help. I stayed awake listening to the footsteps praying that the sun would come up. Again, I must've fallen asleep again around 4:30am because when I woke up, the sun was up and the birds were chirping and I felt a wave of peace that I definitely had not been feeling all night.

The next morning I told a short story about it at breakfast not wanting to make a big deal out of it not wanting to sound crazy but no one seemed too concerned. Even my friend, who was temporarily just as paralyzingly terrified as I was, claimed she wasn't even scared and that it was nothing and not a big deal.

Looking back, I know that even if that person had tried to get into my tent, I could've screamed and had several large men in the tents surrounding out and ready to fight in a matter of seconds. I still think about it often and my friend and her family still make me question myself. I know what I saw and felt and I can honestly say that I have never (and hope to never) feel that kind of raw terror ever again.